PROPOSED RECLASSIFICATION OF CLERICAL 
FORCE IN THE EXECUTIVE 
DEPARTMENTS. 



BEFORE 

U < 5 , 


SUBCOMMITTEE OF HOUSE COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS 
IN CHARGE OF DEFICIENCY APPROPRIATIONS 
FOR 1907 AND PRIOR YEARS 


ON 

GENERAL DEFICIENCY BILL. 


WASHINGTON: 

GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE. 

1907 . 





SUBCOMMITTEE: 

LUCIUS N. LITTAUER. JOSEPH V. GRAFF. 

JAMES A. TAWNEY. STEPHEN BRUNDIDGE, Jr. 

LEONIDAS F. LIVINGSTON. 


jin i*J»» 




1 '-T°c> \f '-e • t? 






PROPOSED RECLASSIFICATION OF CLERICAL FORCE IN 
THE EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENTS. 


Committee on Appropriations, 

Tuesday , January 15 , 1907. 

STATEMENT OF HON. CHARLES H. KEEP, CHAIRMAN OF THE 
COMMITTEE ON DEPARTMENT METHODS. 

CLASSIFICATION OF POSITIONS AND GRADATION OF SALARIES FOR 
EMPLOYEES OF THE EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENTS. 

The Chairman (Mr. Tawney). I wish you would make a statement, 
Mr. Keep, in regard to the classification of positions. 

Mr. Keep. We have made two reports as to hours of labor, holi¬ 
days, sick leave, annual leave, and the methods of granting annual 
leave, and all w r ere based upon existing statutes. The things we 
recommend were all matters that were within the power of the De¬ 
partment to effect by regulation under existing law, no legislation 
being sought at all. 

But when it came to the question of compensation in the Govern¬ 
ment service, then we came to a question which differed, and we found 
that the existing classification dated back fifty-three years—to 1853; 
that at that time the clerks were divided into four grades, the $1,200, 
$1,400, $1,600, and $1,800 grades, and since then the appropriation 
bills had provided for a large number of compensations at rates below 
$1,200, and that the compensations now paid for clerical service in 
Washington were less than they were fifty-three years ago. That 
does not mean that they are less than they ought to be, necessarily. 

The Chairman. Do j t ou mean to say that the compensation below 

$ 1,200 - 

Mr. Keep (interrupting). The average has been reduced, so that the 
average compensation paid to clerks in Washington to-day is less than it 
was in 1853, on account of the large number of people in the grades 
below. 

The Chairman. Below $1,200? 

Mr. Keep. Yes, sir; and it seemed as though after a half a century, 
and with all the changes that have gone on in rates of compensation 
paid in private business, that it was time a new classification was made. 
So we have proceeded to make the classification, which starts with the 
lowest compensation—namely, compensation to people who do common 
labor and devote part of their time to the Government service, like 
charwomen, for instance—and then on up to the chiefs of the most 

3 



4 


CLERICAL FORCE IN THE EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENTS. 


important divisions. The principle of compensation is to divide the 
service into main classes under named descriptions, describing with 
considerable detail the class of work that we find to be proper for each 
of these main classes, and then to provide a number of different com¬ 
pensations under each class with differences of compensation that shall 
be much smaller than the differences between the four grades now, 
leaving a greater difference of compensation between the main classes 
than there is between the different subdivisions in each case, the idea 
being that promotions should be more frequent, and with a much 
smaller advance for each promotion in the clerical service than now, 
a thing which every head of an office thinks would be eminently 
desirable. 

And that promotions from class to class, involving a greater jump 
in compensation, should be made only where the work is changed; in 
other words, you divide the clerical force into four classes with under¬ 
clerks, junior clerks, clerks, and senior clerks, defining with con¬ 
siderable particularity the class of work which each of those clerks 
are expected to do, and providing four different compensations for 
underclerks, $60 per 3 ^ear apart. 

The Chairman. You say you have divided the clerical work done 
by the clerks into four classes? 

Mr. Keep. Yes, sir. 

The Chairman. And then you specify- 

Mr. Keep. We specify the kind of work which is proper in each 
one of those four classes. Then you subdivide the compensation in 
each class and make the number of grades, differing only $60 a year. 
All compensations are divisible by 12, so that in making up pay rolls 
they will not have to deal with cents or fractions of dollars, which in 
itself will save an immense amount of clerical work. 

The difference of compensation between the clerks in the subdivisions 
of each class is $60 a year. But when you come to jump from one 
class to another the difference is greater, or $120 a year.; the idea being 
that a promotion from one class to another should involve a change of 
occupation. 

The greatest fault in the departmental service to-day, and the one 
that takes away ambition from the clerks more than any other one 
thing, is that people sit side by side performing the same work and 
drawing vastly different compensations. 

That is what gives a clerk the idea that good work does not mean 
advancement, and that capability for doing difficult work does not mean 
that he is going to get paid for difficult work. 

The Chairman. Taking the clerical service as a whole, j^ou find that 
it can be divided with reference to the character of work under four 
main heads. 

Mr. Keep. Yes. 

The Chairman. And promotion from one to the other would mean 
an advance of $120 a year? 

Mr. Keep. If a man has proved his capacity in one of those four 
grades to do more difficult work than he is doing, he is entitled to be 
promoted to a grade ahead. 

The Chairman. And that involves an increase of $120 a year? 

Mr. Keep. Yes; and a change of work. 

The Chairman. So that there will not be an increase of salary with 
no change of work ? 


CLERICAL FORCE IN THE EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENTS. 


5 


Mr. Keep. No. 

Lhe Chairman. Under these main heads you have again subdivided 
into four heads. Do you find from your investigation and 3 -our ex¬ 
perience in the Departments that there is as much difference as that 
under each one of these main heads? You say there are four. 

Mr. Keep. In two of the main heads we have made four grades and 
in the other two only three grades. 

The Chairman. And there is difference enough in the character of 
the work within each one of those grades to justify the distinction, is 
there; or is this $60 a year promotion merely due to the efficiency in 
doing the work rather than any difference in character of work? 

Mr. Keep. The promotion in any grade, it is expected, would not be 
based upon difference in work done, but rather on length of service 
and efficiency. 

We have carried the compensations for the senior clerks, the men 
who are doing the same difficult grade of clerical work and whose 
work is largely directory in character, higher than the $1,800 grade, 
and I believe that that can be thoroughly justified with people who 
are familiar with the Departments. There are clerks who are doing 
grades of clerical work that require classifications much higher than 
the chief of an unimportant division. 

It requires a knowledge of the law, of the statutes, and it requires 
executive ability; it requires a thorough knowledge of accounts; it 
requires independence of action in looking over a mass of papers and 
drawing a report from them which shall guide other people in their 
actions. It involves all the expert knowledge that the most expert 
people in the Departments have. 

The Chairman. Have you taken into consideration in your investi¬ 
gation of the subject the endeavor to get awa}^ from the practice that 
obtains in some of the Departments at the present time of securing 
increases in compensation b} T having a man’s designation changed to 
the more high-sounding name, like a law clerk, or something of that 
- kind? 

Mr. Keep. We carry our compensation for senior clerks up as high 
$2,100 a year, and that ought to make provision for the very people 
that are now seeking compensation above $1,800 a year under special 
designation. 

Our report contained a very interesting lot of information gathered 
from the records of the Civil Service Commission and elsewhere, tend¬ 
ing to show that the Government service is likely to deteriorate in 
character very materially unless there is some change in the compen¬ 
sation paid to men doing the highest grades of work; that it is that 
increasing difficulty that the Government meets in getting people to 
come here and enter the clerical service. The number of declinafions 
of positions by people who have passed the civil service examination, 
who are on the eligible list, and who are offered positions here is 
increasing rapidly because the best on the eligible list do not come, 
as they can do better, so we necessarily have to take the inferior ones. 
That is going to have a very serious effect upon the Government 
service unless it is checked. 

Also it was the experience of all the Departments that they are 
losing every year more of the most desirable men they have, who 
leave the Government service and go into private employment. That 
is especially true in the technical branches of the service. I can give 


6 CLERICAL FORCE IN THE EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENTS. 

a good illustration of that which has come under my own observation. 
We have just lost the chief of the engineer and machinery division of 
the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, he having gone into private 
service at a higher salaiy. We lost our ink maker a few months ago 
under the same circumstances. In the Bureau we are able to meet 
that difficulty by increasing the present places, because the Secretary 
of the Treasury has authority to do so, but in the architect’s office we 
have lost a large part of the force because of running out of business, 
and the architect tells me that nearty all of the men that leave the 
service are receiving higher salaries in private life than they were 
under him; and he is finding it extremely difficult to build up his 
force again now when a large amount of new work is coming in and 
needs draftsmen, architects, and other technical employees. 

The Chairman. Mr. Keep, can you state what these four main sub¬ 
divisions of clerical work embrace as compared with the present 
classification ? 

Mr. Keep. It covers the entire field from the $900 clerk to the man 
who is being appropriated for under special designation above $1,800. 
It covers that field. 

The Chairman. Up to $2,100? 

Mr. Keep. Yes. 

The Chairman. Those four designations ? 

Mr. Keep. Yes, sir. We have below the $900 service four other 
classes of employees; first, employees whose work occupies only a 
part of the time each day, as charwomen, janitors, etc., and they are 
arranged in three grades, at $240, $300, and $300 a year. Then 
employees who enter the service at an early age (14 to 18 years) and 
are engaged in light work, such as messenger boys, pages, and so 
on, at salaries of $300, $360, $420, and $480. Also employees engaged 
in rough and unskilled work, as laborers generally, at $600 and $660. 
Also employees whose duties are not clerical or mechanical, but 
require some special skill or involve personal responsibility, such as 
messengers, watchmen, classified laborers, sorters, counters, etc., 
from salaries at $660 to $840. And we have added here a line, which 
I think is an important part of the work, although it will involve some 
severe changes in the Department, and that is that no person whose 
principal duties are, as I have above stated, shall be paid over $840. 

Now, you will find people sitting side by side counting and sorting. 
One person may be appropriated for as a sorter and a counter, and is 
perhaps receiving $600 a year, and next to that person is a clerk who 
is incapable of performing a high grade of clerical service, and who 
is sorting and counting, but has been appropriated for as a clerk and 
may be getting $1,600 a year. 

The Chairman. We had an illustration of that at this session of 
Congress with respect to telephone operators. We appropriated for 
them, specially designating them as telephone switchboard operators, 
at a compensation of $740 a year. One of the Departments here—I 
will not name it—thought that they ought to have two telephone 
switchboard operators, so they detailed a $1,200 clerk to act as the 
other switchboard operator, one of them being designated as a tele¬ 
phone switchboard operator and receiving $700 a year, and the other 
one, who was appointed as a clerk, doing identically the same work 
and receiving $1,200 a year. 

Mr. Keep. That runs through the Departments to some extent. 


CLERICAL FORCE IN THE EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENTS. 


7 


The Chairman. In your investigation, to what extent have } 7 ou 
found that the most of these abuses, if not all of them, are the result 
of administration evils. 1 am referring to those that } 7 ou spoke of 
last? 

Mr. Keep. I think they are all the result of it. Those things are the 
faults of administration—well, I could not say exactly that, because 
the appropriation bills themselves may provide different rates of com¬ 
pensation for the same clerks that work in different offices. 

The Chairman. I think that is true. 

Mr. Keep. You will notice that I say here in the report: u No per¬ 
son whose principal duties are as above shall be paid over 1840. If 
you do not put that qualification in, they will take a person and put 
him at counting, which will be 95 per cent of the work, and then they 
will give him a little clerical work to do so as to take him out of that 
classification. 

The Chairman. We have considerable legislation now intended to 
prevent some of these things, but our difficult} 7 is in getting the heads 
of the Departments to enforce the law. 

Mr. Keep. I would like to read you a paragraph here from our 
report [reads]: 

A systematic effort has been made to obtain information from business establish¬ 
ments of various kinds respecting the gradation and salaries of their employees, and 
returns were received from about fifty, including municipalities, railroads, insurance 
companies, large stores, and manufacturing establishments. These have been com¬ 
pared with similar returns in regard to the classes and salaries in the Departments. 
It is difficult to make a reliable comparison respecting the great mass of positions, 
because of the impossibility of comparing the value and effectiveness of services ren¬ 
dered. In general it is found that directive and supervisory agents and those using 
technical skill or expert knowledge are much better paid in private and corporate 
employ than under the Government; that the better grades of efficient and well- 
qualified clerical employees are somewhat better paid than are those in similar posi¬ 
tions in the Departments, and that the lower grades of clerks, stenographers, and 
typewriters are better paid in the public service than in private employ. 

That the lower grades of clerical employees in the Government service are better 
paid than persons in similar work in private employ has long been generally recog¬ 
nized. But the experience of administrative officers and of the Civil Service Com¬ 
mission in securing competent eligibles to fill the lower positions proves conclusively 
that the lower salaries are not sufficient to attract competent persons to the service. 
These positions have been found the hardest of all to fill with persons actually com¬ 
petent, under the standard maintained by the Commission and the Executive Depart¬ 
ments. Thus, in the last fiscal year 1,462 persons were offered positions at less than 
$900 in the Departments at Washington. Of these 442, or 30.23 per cent, declined. 
Positions at $900 or more were offered to 762 persons, and 202, or 26.51 per cent, 
declined. Under the War Department the declinations of positions in Washington 
rose to 32 per cent, while the declinations of field positions reached 53 per cent. Of 
the 860 male eligibles on the clerical register of the Civil Service Commission, 445, 
or 51.73 per cent, have stated that they would not accept positions at a salary lower 
than $840. 


EFFICIENCY AND PERMANENCY IN SERVICE. 

The very serious consequence of these declinations is that the most competent 
and desirable eligibles decline the salaries that can be offered, and it is necessary to 
appoint in their stead persons distinctly inferior in qualifications. This is a matter 
seriously affecting the quality of the personnel, since it is by promotion from the 
lower grades that the service is built up. 

It is plain that such salaries as $480, $600, and $720 a year, which have become 
quite common in several Departments of late, are entirely too low for any person who 
has passed creditably a civil-service examination for the clerical grades, and that 
they tend to the deterioration of the service. 


8 


CLERICAL BORCE IN THE EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENTS. 


Mr. Keep. Now, there is another thing that of course 3*011 are 
familiar with, and it is very well stated here [reads]: 

Several important conditions must be borne in mind when a comparison is urged 
between the small wages paid in certain lines by corporations and private employers, 
and the alleged high salaries under the Government. Applicants for appointment in 
the Department must prove a high standard of character and must pass a rigid 
examination to test their qualifications. Furthermore, the law apportioning positions 
among the States and Territories requires that many eligibles entering the service 
shall leave homes far distant from Washington and take up their residence in a 
strange city under conditions of life generally more expensive than those to which 
they have been accustomed. 

On the other hand, most of the positions which constitute the entrance to private 
and corporate employ are recruited from girls and boys of the teeming population in 
the mill towns and commercial centers, who compete for employment as soon as 
they posses the rudiments of common school education, or even without that quali¬ 
fication, and who generally live at home, contributing to and deriving their sup¬ 
port from the common fund. They afford no criterion for a scale of salaries to 
persons possessing the high degree of general education or special training now 
required for entrance into the Government service. 

Particularly is that true with regard to the change from the home 
town, coming to Washington, and setting up an independent mode of 
life and taking care of themselves. It involves a considerable expense. 

The Chairman. Have 3^011 considered the question of having any 
general designation of those above the $2,100 grade? 

Mr. Keep. We thought of naming some grades for chiefs of divi¬ 
sions, but it is impracticable. Instead of starting a chief of division 
above the point of $2,100, we thought that there are some chiefs of 
divisions who ought to receive less than the most expert; but the range 
of salaries for chiefs of divisions should be a rather wide one, and we 
have recommended a commencement at $2,100 and running up to 
$4,200, because we have adopted all the way through the principle of 
using figures divisible by twelve, which will make it much simpler in 
making payments and keeping the accounts. 

The cost of these changes to the Government depends upon the 
application. Congress can say to the Departments: Carry out this 
scheme at an extra cost of so much per cent; and they must then cut 
the coat according to the cloth, for you can not carry out a scheme 
fairly without some extra cost. We thought in the first place of 
applying this scheme to a number of offices which would seem to 
increase the cost about 6^ to 7 per cent on the average, but in some 
other offices more than that. But it depended a great deal upon 
where the dividing line of the work is drawn and in what grade of 
compensation. You pa 3 * the compensation, you put the people in 
those offices in which they are assigned, and if the scheme is put in 
operation it must he fixed by Congress and the Department made to 
conform to it. 

The Chairman. How could Congress require the Departments to 
conform, not knowing anything about the different grades of work? 
Say there was one grade of clerical work in one Department here where 
to-day there was employed in that work 40 per cent of the clerks 
employed in that Department, and then another grade where there was 
40 per cent, and another grade 20 per cent. How could Congress fix 
the number that should be employed in each grade? I don’t see how 
it is practicable. Now the Departments have to do that. 

Mr. Keep. We have had that question up, of course, and in the rec¬ 
ommendations that we have made in the nature of this report which 


CLERICAL FORCE IN THE EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENTS. 


9 


have been submitted to the President and not yet made public, and 
which he asked me to give to you and talk about in order that you 
might talk to him about it, provision is made for that matter. Our 
recommendations are as follows [reads]: 

RECOMMENDATIONS. 

1. That Congress be asked to make an appropriation of a sum equivalent to 10 per 
cent of the total amount provided for in the pending appropriation bills for the pay¬ 
ment of salaries (whether statutory or paid from lump funds) of employees of each 
of the bureaus and offices of the Executive Departments and independent establish¬ 
ments in Washington, or directly on detail therefrom, for the fiscal year beginning 
July 1, 1907, for the purpose of adapting the compensation of such employees for 
that fiscal year to the schedule submitted. 

2. That Congress be asked further to authorize and direct that the head of each 
Executive Department and independent establishment in Washington prepare a 
classification of positions and salaries of employees in his office in Washington, or 
on direct detail therefrom, in accordance with the schedule herewith submitted and 
within the sums appropriated for the payment of such salaries for the fiscal year 
beginning July 1, 1907, including the increase provided for in recommendation 1, 
the said classification to provide for the same number of employees and, as near as 
may be, with due regard to the principles of this schedule, following the same rela¬ 
tive distribution of classes as provided for in the pending appropriation bills for the 
fiscal year beginning July 1, 1907. That it be further provided by Congress that 
such classification when formally approved by the President shall be followed in the 
payment of salaries in each office during the fiscal year beginning July 1, 1907, and 
that future estimates presented to Congress be based upon this classification. 

3. That a committee be formed, composed of a representative of each Executive 
Department and independent establishment in Washington, designated by the head 
thereof, whose duty it shall be to consider the character of the work performed in 
the several bureaus and offices and the salaries paid therefor and to recommend such 
further adjustments or other measures as will bring about a general uniformity of 
compensation in all public offices, for the same kind of work, such recommendations 
to be considered in the preparation of future estimates. 

Mr. Keep. The first recommendation deals with the appropriation 
for each Department independently inputting this thing in operation. 
The third recommendation provides for something that never has been 
brought together, and that is for interdepartmental action looking to 
uniformity in the different Departments in the same kind of work. 
The second recommendation is not as essential as the first two. 

The Chairman. It is very desirable, because it will r&sult in uni¬ 
formity of classification of work, and that is one of the great difficul¬ 
ties we have in appropriating. In getting at it we run across some 
clerks in some of the Departments that are getting 25 per cent more 
for doing identically the same work that is being done in another 
Department. But how to reach it is the great problem with us. 

Mr. Keep. There is considerable matter in this report showing 
increases in compensation paid in business operations throughout the 
country, and there is some interesting information showing increases 
in the cost of living and all that that bear on the question of compen¬ 
sation. 












































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